Yes, that's exactly what I meant! I wrote that they don't need "an", in the sense they take "a".(Ok, this is the proof that English is not my mothertongue...)Anyway, thank you for your answer: now I am sure about this rule.

The trick I learned was that if it feels weird to say it with "a", use "an". That's the whole reason the word exists. Sometimes that includes words that don't start with vowels. Once in a while you can find a vowel word that doesn't need "an", though I can't think of any off the top of my head.

"Modern" French (that is, not Old French) is probably responsible for most, if not all, English words beginning with a silent H. It has nothing to do with the ancient English pronunciation rule governing the use of "a" and "an."

2) The writer is being "hypercorrect." What I mean is that the writer actually thinks that there is a rule that you should use "an" before words that are spelled with an H. There is no such rule.

The rule is simply that YOU use "an" before words that YOU pronounce with a beginning vowel sound, and "a" for words that YOU pronounce with a beginning consonant sound, regardless of the actual spelling of the word.

GP, get outa town! :-)Some British (or Irish probably) may not pronounce the H in some words. 'Ope instead of Hope for example in Cockney accent.You would say "an hour" because the H is mute there. So as SW said it merely depends on the pronounciation and not on the spelling. (Unless your English teacher was "an" GP!!) Have a look at this too: http://painintheenglish.com/post.asp?id=152

I think I have read elsewhere on this site that if the first "h" syllable is unstressed then "an" is ok (optional?), but if it is stressed then "a" should be used. I'm not sure if I agree, by the way, but here's an example:

An historic event... (hisTORic)

but:

A history of... (HIStory)

We're talking about words where the H is not silent. If the H is silent (hour, honor, etc.) then it's always "an".

Funny, I recall being taught in grammar school that using "an" before unsilent H's was not the norm, but allowable.

Chiara, you said it right the first time, so don't lose your self-esteem :) Speedwell probably just misread.

I agree with Speed about hypercorrectness, which pestilential blight seems to infect grammar teachers all across the lower grades, causing their students to give up on what seems to be a completely nonsensical language when they should instead be enjoying it. Wow, speaking of nonsensical language, say that last sentence ten times fast!

Also good to remember that in American English, at least, the pronunciation of the vowel in "the" varies by the following word's initial letter in just the same way. You would pronounce "thuh" before words you pronounce with a beginning consonant, and "thee" before words you pronounce with a beginning vowel.

I believe that "an" before a silent H is a remnant of French. In French this is called a liason and functions the same way that it does now in English, which is simply to make words flow into one another, rather than having to pause in speech to enunciate seperate vowel sounds. Hope that helps.

Saying aN Historic is an absurdity. Until comparatively recently, it was correct not to aspirate such words as hotel. That is why in older novels, one tends to see 'an hotel'. It was, of course, pronounced, by duke and dustman alike, 'an 'otel'.

I guess it is 'Strine or Kiwi then. They do not seem to say 'an Hotel' here, though; so it's not generalized. And maybe it's just the newsreaders for emphasis in phrases such as 'an HHistoric win for John Key'.

@jayles - I think quite a few Brits do it as well. At the British National Corpus it's 159 'an historic' to 126 'a historic', but of course pronunciation doesn't come into play there. Funnily enough I've just been looking at something else in a book called 'An Historical Syntax of the English Language', published in 1963.

Even with a silent H, it seems to me somewhat old-fashioned now, and no doubt it and horrific (50 'a' to 25 'an' at the BNC) will eventually go the way of 'hotel' (754 'a' to 76 'an' at the BNC).